


No discipline of forgetting

by wanderlight (Aoftheis)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Id Fic (in more ways than one), Limbo, M/M, Pining, Slice of Life, dream architecture, dreamscapes & playing with the imaginary laws of Limbo, leaving and leaving and coming back, misappropriation of Freud and Lacan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 16:37:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17063243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoftheis/pseuds/wanderlight
Summary: Arthur forgets; Eames waits.A story about Arthur and Eames, in Limbo, for a long, long time — and the world they make together.





	No discipline of forgetting

**Author's Note:**

> This is the very first Inception story I started, way back. I think I am probably the slowest writer in fandom. Thanks to [chibi_lurrel](http://chibi_lurrel.livejournal.com), [jibrailis](http://jibrailis.livejournal.com), and deepsix for the beta work.
> 
> Oh, and apologies to Freud and Lacan. I know it's bad academic practice to misinterpret quotations and appropriate them for gay porn.

**[1]**

 

At the edge of the cliff, Eames looks down into the ocean. One step over the edge is all he needs to wake up.

He'd washed up on the shore of his unconscious alone -- but it hadn't felt right. So he'd walked the cliffside, searching. There was no one else.

Maybe his mind has just been playing tricks on itself. Maybe it's time to go.

Eames tilts forward, flirting with the edge --

\-- and then there are hands on his waist, pulling him back, and he stumbles into a warm body.

He turns. A piece of Arthur's hair brushes his forehead, they're that close.

"God, you --" Arthur says, a little breathless. He backs them away from the edge, his hands steady on Eames' waist. "You scared me. Don't jump yet, okay?"

"Okay," Eames says easily. Then he realises, "I think I was looking for you."

Arthur holds Eames in his arms for another moment, just looking into his face. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. Then he blinks, as if noticing how close they're standing. He steps back.

"I was looking, too. But not for you," he says, like it's a simple fact.

"For ... ?"

Arthur makes a noise of frustration, low in his throat, and shakes his head. "Fuck, I still can't remember."

*

The passage of time is strange in Limbo.

Side-by-side, they search for what seems like hours. On a hunch, Eames dreams up a watch and checks it at intervals. (Discreetly, since Arthur's refused to let them build things.)

The watch eventually confirms his hunch: it hasn't been hours, it's been days.

Memory is deceptive here, Arthur explains: "Dom's told me a little about what it's like." Periods of sameness collapse inwards, turning on points of difference. A two-minute conversation is perceived as two minutes, but so are hours of silent walking. No wonder it's so easy to lose yourself.

In the end, they don't find anything but exhaustion, so Arthur picks a sheltered spot and they sleep -- within reaching distance, but facing in opposite directions.

*

Eames wakes up. Arthur's watching him, and from the set of his shoulders, he has been for a while. He's sitting cross-legged, with his head propped up on his hand.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi yourself," Eames replies, smiling lazily. He sits up and stretches the stiffness out of his shoulders. "Did you sleep at all?"

"A bit."

Arthur's hair is sleep-mussed and the top two buttons of his shirt are undone. But he ruins the effect by sitting up straight, suddenly all business. There's a gun on the ground next to him. "We should go," he says.

"You're certain there's nothing here?"

"No. But we can't stay."

Eames nods. He gets to his feet and offers Arthur a hand up, which Arthur accepts. "How do you want it?"

"I was thinking Barcelona," Arthur says. "Do me first."

"Too messy. I prefer not to literally have your blood on my hands, if that's all right. How about that time in Mumbai?"

"That's fine." Arthur lets Eames come up behind him, relaxing into the curve of his arms. It's funny: the only time he gets to touch Arthur like this is when he's about to snap his neck.

"Alright?"

"I'm waiting."

It's quick and painless. Arthur crumples; Eames catches him, laying his body down gently. Then he goes to pick up the gun. And when he turns back, Arthur's getting to his feet.

"Eames?" Arthur says, confused. He's rubbing at his neck, but he seems whole and unbroken.

They try it again. And again. Five different times, in five different ways. Finally Arthur says, "Fuck this," and they give up.

"What the hell, Eames."

"I have no idea," Eames replies. "I don't exactly frequent Limbo. My best guess is that your instincts were right, and there _is_ someone else here. Someone your subconscious knows we can't leave without, maybe. We'll have to keep looking."

"Not _we_ ," Arthur says. "You might be able to leave. You haven't tried yet."

"And I'm not going to."

Arthur looks at him for a long moment. Then he says, "Okay." He says it in the tone most people use to say _thank you_.

"Shall we go?"

"Not _we_ ," Arthur says, again. "Splitting up means covering more area. The clifftop where I found you -- I'll go back there in one year. Be there."

"Don't leave --"

Arthur arches an eyebrow.

" _Yet_ ," Eames finishes, with a grin.

He concentrates for a moment, then opens his hand. Resting on his palm are two identical silver pocketwatches, antique in design. Their faces display a circle cut into twelve unnumbered portions.

He tosses one to Arthur. "It counts down the month, not the hour."

Arthur slides it into the top pocket of his shirt, a simple white button-down. He nods once, a tiny smile on his lips, and then leaves. Except for Arthur's footsteps on the grass, it's silent.

Eames watches him walk away until his back is just a hard, dark line standing up against the horizon.

*

At first, Eames travels.

Since neither he nor Arthur have ever been in Limbo before, the landscape is just a vacancy. It's never literally empty -- the mind can't present disunities and impossibilities, so it fills the space before blankness can be perceived. But Limbo can only draw upon his memories, so that wherever he goes he just discovers places he's been before, emptied of people.

He walks. He thinks. He thinks about Arthur: his condescension, his casually cruel mouth.

It's Eames' job to deceive, to blur the truth. When the situation calls for it, he'll lie to himself -- everyone does; it's naive to pretend otherwise. But Arthur is one truth he can't get around.

Eventually, Eames finds himself walking in unfamiliar territory. Arthur's memories.

There are endless indistinguishable cities, coalescing into one; the vistas of Afghanistan's gunfire-burnt deserts; the university in Paris; the street where the Cobbs moved after Mal gave birth to James; a sixteen-story hotel in Prague where all of the rooms are empty, except for 228.

Eames remembers that room, that hotel. It's his memory, too. He opens the door and steps inside.

*

Mal dies. Eames gets a call from Arthur at two in the morning.

Arthur doesn't ask him to, not even obliquely, but Eames drives three hours through the pouring rain to get to him.

There's been something between them for so long that Eames forgets how it started. It makes Arthur touch too much, makes Eames let those touches linger -- too long, for someone whose body is so precise he can mimic nervous tics you didn't even know you had. It comes between them like a knife twisting underneath skin. It never comes to anything.

Eames baits; Arthur snaps. When it comes to the kick, Arthur's never gentle. Maybe this should matter, but it doesn't.

When Eames gets there, the room door is open a crack. Arthur sits on the edge of the bed, straight-backed, an unopened bottle of vodka in his right hand.

Eames closes the door behind him. "I'm surprised you're not in L.A. already."

"Couldn't get a flight out till tomorrow morning."

Arthur's left the window wide open. It's freezing cold, but he doesn't seem to notice. Eames goes to stand in front of Arthur; puts a hand on his shoulder, and leaves it there. They stay like that for a few minutes, not looking at each other. He's thinking about Mal, and he knows Arthur is, too.

Arthur smashes the bottle against the floor.

"For the love of god," he says, as the vodka seeps into the carpet, "don't fucking _cry_ , I can't fucking deal with that right now."

"Jesus, Arthur. I'm not."

Arthur stands. They're so close that Eames can feel the rise and fall of Arthur's breathing in his own chest, and heat flares at the base of his spine.

Gently, Arthur puts a hand to Eames' face and brushes a thumb across his eyelashes. It comes away wet. He drags the wetness down Eames' cheek; his thumb nudges up against Eames' lips, then between them.

Eames tastes salt.

Arthur kisses him, with a desperation that's expected and a sweet desire that isn't. This is the first time they've done this, and the thought makes Eames go still, paralysed with want. Arthur looks at him, a question in his eyes.

Instead of answering it, Eames pushes him down to the bed, hands on Arthur's jaw, undoing the buttons of his shirt, sliding off his pants to get at the skin he's finally allowed to touch. He tries to be as gentle as he can, but want makes him careless.

Arthur cries out, and it's the first helpless noise Eames has ever heard from him.

There's a thin line of blood cut across Arthur's thigh, from where a shard of broken glass got pressed between them. Arthur just shakes his head and pulls off Eames' shirt, efficient hands fumbling at the zip of his pants. "It's not deep," he insists, rough and low.

Without thinking about it, Eames leans down, pressing a kiss there, and when he takes Arthur's cock into his mouth he tastes an edge of coppery blood. He doesn't hold back; he uses everything he knows to make Arthur feel, to forget.

Then he wraps his hand around Arthur's cock, spit-slick, jacking him off in slow pulls as he moves upwards to kiss him. It's hot and messy and Arthur melts right into it, content to cling to Eames and lick away the taste of himself. He kisses like he's helpless, pliant and needy, and Eames just wants to hold Arthur down and rut against him until they both come.

Arthur moves his hips, though, pleadingly -- and it's a foreign thought, for a man with few attachments, but Eames wants to take care of Arthur, in any way that Arthur will let him. It won't be enough, but he'll do what he can. He tracks kisses down Arthur's neck, his chest, his stomach, and kneels between his legs again, looking up at him.

"Fuck my mouth," Eames says, voice wrecked. "Fuck my mouth until you come," and Arthur moans like it's been ripped from him.

Eames slips the head of Arthur's cock between his lips. It rubs against the back of his throat as Arthur thrusts into him, over and over, filling him up more than a kiss ever could. He loses himself to the sensation, to the knowledge that Arthur is using his mouth to take what he needs. It isn't long before he comes, and Eames is gentle, holding Arthur's softening cock in his mouth as he shakes with the aftershocks. When he climbs up on the bed, Arthur reaches for his cock, but Eames brushes his hand away.

"Eames?" he says uncertainly.

Eames just shakes his head, stripping off the rest of their clothes. He's still hard, aching for it, but it doesn't matter -- Arthur's sleepy and unthinking and calm, and Eames wants it to remain that way.

"Stay," Eames says, curling around Arthur. He presses his lips against Arthur's skin.

The next morning, Arthur's gone. He's cleaned up the glass, the spilled vodka, but hasn't left a trace of himself.

*

After that, Arthur and Dom drop off-grid and stay there for months. The next time he contacts Eames, it's with a job offer. They go back to their endless, circling dance, like that night had just been a misstep.

Can you lose something if you never had it in the first place?

Eames wants Arthur, and he _knows_ that Arthur wants him -- but that's not what Arthur needs right now. What he needs is someone he can rely on, a number that he can call for backup. A forger. A rival, sometimes; someone who will challenge him and keep him sharp on the job. A way to get Dom out of a Kenyan prison. A list of trustworthy chemists. A replacement PASIV. An experimental compound that's supposed to make projections more docile.

Eames gives it all to him, and loses track, after a while. The one thing Arthur never seems to need again is a warm body in the night.

 

**[2]**

 

Eames leaves the memory, shutting the door behind him.

Arthur spooks easily. If he realises Eames is following his memories through Limbo, he might not come back, when the year's up. Eames has seen him angrier over less.

Eames can't seem to stop stumbling into places where Arthur's been. So he heads back to the beach.

*

When he gets there, he finds Ariadne sitting cross-legged in front of a fire on the clifftop.

"Eames!"

It's been so long since he had anything but his own thoughts for company that he sweeps her off her feet in a hug. As he sets her down again, he laughs. "Sorry I'm so happy that you died."

Ariadne lets out a short laugh. "It's weird," she says softly. "I don't remember it. Dying, I mean. I just woke up here."

"That's probably for the best." Eames has been dying in dreams for ten years, but he's still not used to having pieces of flesh and muscle ripped from his bones.

"Yeah," she says, looking out at the ocean. "Yeah, you're right. Anyway, I think I just got here, but it's hard to tell. How long for you?"

"A bit over five months. Absolute fucking boredom. There's nothing to discover, unless you create it yourself."

"Then why don't you?"

"I can't," Eames says, surprised. "Objects, I can do. Or calling up places from memory. But I can't build from scratch. I'm not an architect."

"Mal built in Limbo, and she wasn't an architect."

"True," Eames admits. Mal had been a chemist; experimenting with sedation and dreams within dreams had been her idea, originally. "How did you know that?"

Ariadne grins, a little slyly. After a pause she says, "I bullied Cobb into telling me -- but you're changing the topic, don't think I can't tell. Come on, try it. Build something. If I can do it, you can do it."

"Alright."

Eames walks to the edge of the cliff. Then he turns to face the beach and brings his hands up, imagining something he'd never have the skill to build normally. Parallel to his motion, an intricate structure rises and shakes off sand: it's what a sandcastle on a beach might look like, if the Greeks had constructed it with marble in the middle of the Hellenistic age.

"My god," Eames says wonderingly. It's so easy here -- too easy.

*

After a few months, Eames and Ariadne are naturalised citizens of Limbo, sort of. They live in the marble sandcastle, making the sun rise and set every day, waiting for Arthur to come back.

At first, Eames works on refining his forges, but it's hardly practice. In fact, it's dangerous. Forging in Limbo is addictively simple: it's just as easy to be who you're not as who you are. Eames tries not to do it too often.

Ariadne spends most of her time building. She's intensely private about it, spending hours alone and not letting Eames see the finished results -- though she will talk at length about impossible architecture and pushing the laws of physics. It's all stuff he's heard from Dom before, and Eames listens indulgently. Just as Eames suspected, Ariadne and Dom have one thing in common: neither give a damn about reality. They just want to break its rules, consequences be damned. It's one of the things Eames loves about a good architect. It's one of the things he'll never forgive Dom for.

*

One afternoon, when Ariadne's down at the beach, Eames hears a knock on the front door. He goes to open it.

"Hi," Arthur says, a small smile on his face.

He's not looking past Eames; he's not looking for something that Eames doesn't have. He's just looking, a little tentatively, at _Eames_. For the last seven years, Eames has tried to get Arthur to look at him like that. Something clenches in his chest.

Eames reaches into his pocket. The antique silver pocketwatch is there, resting next to his poker chip; it always is. He makes a show of consulting the hands. Six o'clock, so it's been six months since he and Arthur split up to search Limbo. Arthur's early. He'd said he wouldn't return for a year.

"Did you miss me too much?" Eames says, holding up the watch with a grin. "You weren't supposed to be home till midnight -- but look, you're just in time for dinner."

Arthur's smile flickers, and Eames finds that he can breathe again.

"I'm tired," Arthur says. The set of his shoulders says it, too. "Are you going to let me in?"

"Darling. As if I could keep you out."

*

Whoever they're looking for, it's not Ariadne.

They try to leave, but just like the last time, the kick doesn't work -- not on Arthur, at least. He throws down his gun in disgust. "Look," he says, running a hand through his hair. "I can take care of myself. You should get out of here."

"I'd rather wait," Eames says casually.

Startled, Arthur looks at him. "You always wait for me, don't you."

"I guess I do," Eames says. He laughs; the heat in Arthur's voice makes him feel strange, _owned_.

"If he's staying, I'm staying," Ariadne says.

Arthur frowns. "I'm not going to pretend I want to be abandoned, but -- why? There's nothing here for you."

"It's not like I can get bored here. Not for a while, anyway," Ariadne says. "You just have to build things."

The three of them stay up late talking. In Limbo, the nights don't get cold if you don't want them to, and Ariadne puts on a meteor shower, just to show off. At sunrise, there's an argument: Arthur insists on searching alone. He says that Eames and Ariadne have to stay put, as a failsafe. That it's easier to get lost in Limbo if you're on the move. That he needs someplace to return to, someone to come looking for him if he doesn't come back. 

It's all true, but it's not the truth.

Arthur, Eames knows, is angry at himself: for missing Fischer's militarisation, for not being able to find what he's looking for. He's always taken on his failures as a personal burden. They're something he doesn't share, or give up on.

"It's not negotiable," Arthur says finally. "If you don't stay here, Eames, you don't get to stay." He slams a gun down on the table.

"Alright -- alright, Arthur. Calm down."

Thanks to time distortion, they can stay in Limbo for years, as long as they remember it isn't real. Eames hates the idea of just _waiting_ , though. Before he can breach the topic, Ariadne does it for him: "You know, even you need a break. Come visit us every once in a while."

"Maybe."

"I had a thought," Eames says after a moment. "Remaining in one place does have its benefits."

He outlines the concept, and they implement it, scattering jarring mistakes everywhere like little totems -- lightbulbs that burn cool green instead of warm yellow, clothing without seams, oddly-shaped electrical sockets. Safeguards to help them remember.

"And what if you forget?" Eames asks Arthur, after they're done.

"I won't."

 

**[3]**

 

Upon moving in, Arthur destroys the castle. He snaps his fingers, cool and arrogant, and it crumbles.

Then he grins, and says to Ariadne, "Build with me."

Arthur creates a Penrose staircase, reconstructing a structure around it. Eames sprawls in the sand, watching. For hours, Arthur and Ariadne bicker and laugh and tear apart each others' work; Arthur's smiling the whole time, though he doesn't seem to realise it.

The house, when it's done, exists at strange angles from the ground and hurts to look at. Arthur thinks it's a nice security feature. The rooms are distributed across four "floors," and Eames wants his room to be at the top, but of course that has no meaning when the stairs go up or down at the same time.

"Don't think about the paradox while you're on the stairs," Ariadne warns him.

Eames shrugs. "I won't. You know I'm not like you two. I don't get off on impossible geometry."

"Sorry."

"Hm?" Eames isn't paying attention; he's smiling a little, watching Arthur add a series of fire escapes. Only Arthur would be worried about exit routes in a place where there's no threat to speak of.

"Well, there aren't any people here," Ariadne says. "You must be bored." She looks from Eames to Arthur, then says, "Or maybe not."

*

On the sixth morning after Arthur comes back, Eames stumbles down the staircase to find Ariadne eating Cheerios out of the box and a note on the kitchen table.

_Gone again for a while. Have to keep looking. Don't fucking touch anything in my closet, Eames._

Eames puts the kettle on, movements automatic. Making tea is one of his rituals, when he needs a ritual. The others involve alcohol, but losing grip on reality is not such a good idea here.

"He'll be back, Eames."

"I know that," Eames says. He rummages in the cupboard for a mug and some Earl Grey, and then waits as the water boils.

*

A few weeks later, Eames walks into the kitchen, yawning.

Arthur is making pancakes. His sleeves are rolled up to the elbows. There's flour on his tie. The entire scene is so domestic, so dreamlike, that Eames instinctively reaches into his pocket for his totem.

This is when he realises he's wearing boxers, and nothing else.

Arthur's gaze wanders down his body and back up again. And then he smiles, and there's a dimple involved.

Eames can't find anything better to say than, "The Arthur I know can't cook."

Arthur shrugs. "I do pancakes and sandwiches. You like maple syrup?"

The kitchen is different, Eames realises. The countertops are granite, the tap is stainless steel. There's an espresso maker plugged in next to the toaster. All of these are things that Eames has seen in Arthur's apartment before. Arthur put them here, deliberately.

So Eames sits down at the table, where there's a place setting and a glass of milk waiting, and lets Arthur serve him pancakes with maple syrup. For the first time in Limbo, Arthur eats with him. It's only been half a week since Arthur left, and this time, he stays for two.

*

Arthur's in front of the mirror, trying to put himself together. He can't seem to decide on a tie, and the frustration shows on his face. Eames knows the tie isn't the problem.

"You're not happy, darling."

Arthur meets his eyes in the mirror. "Good job. So fucking what."

"So," Eames says, and then stops.

Sadness is something for other people: Arthur gets the job done. Eames has always seen it as a mark of competence, but he also remembers what things were like before Mal died. Arthur's entire posture had been different. He'd worn embarrassingly colourful ties.

"Why would I be happy? We're trapped here. We have been for eight months. Because I can't do my goddamn job."

"It's not your job to singlehandedly track down a vague hunch in the middle of Limbo," Eames says gently. "Come here." He chooses a tie at random and holds it up.

Obediently, Arthur steps back so that he can put it on. He closes his eyes, leaning into Eames' touch.

When Arthur lets his guard down, his body discipline goes to shit.

Most people are duped by the poker face, the three-piece suits. _Cobb's point man is inscrutable,_ they say. _I can never tell what's going on in his head._ But Eames looks closer, and he knows that Arthur's thoughts and desires are written straight into the movements of his hands and his hips. He'll stand too close, or put that steadying palm in the small of Eames' back just a few inches too low. He'll string Eames out over the course of a night with half-smiles and lingering touches. And he'll do it all with sweet obliviousness, because he has no idea what his body is saying.

Eames finishes knotting a double Windsor, and pulls it snug. He brushes his fingers against Arthur's throat, noticing how Arthur's breath catches.

It's unbearable to know how much Arthur wants him, and won't act on it.

*

While Arthur's gone, Eames and Ariadne sometimes walk along the beach together. They talk, or they're just silent. It's good to get out of the house, to stare out at the endless ocean and be reminded.

"What's that?"

There's a glint of metal in the sand. Strange. Things don't just wash up in Limbo; they have to be created first, and Eames doesn't remember creating anything around here.

Ariadne reaches down, slipping the thing into her pocket.

"Not going to show me?"

"I'd rather not," she says with a shrug. "Just scraps from something I tried to build yesterday -- it fell apart. Kind of embarrassing, actually."

"Alright." Eames figures it's none of his business. They all need to hold onto something in Limbo, even if it's just a secret.

*

"What are you hiding from me?"

Arthur strips the blankets off of Eames' bed, steals his pillow, and rolls him onto the hardwood floor. The he grabs him by the bicep and hauls him down to the living room.

Eames blinks. There's a small safe built into the wall right above the fireplace.

"It's not mine," Arthur says.

 _It's not mine, either,_ Eames is about to say -- but then again it might be. If he'd wanted to hide something from himself, this is how he'd do it. He wonders if he'd puzzled out Ariadne's secret, and put it here. If it's bad enough to hide, shouldn't he ... ? Well, no. He should trust his own mind, if he'd decided not to remember.

He says, "Everyone has something they'd rather forget."

Arthur looks at Eames like he wants to hit him. He steps into Eames' space like he's going to. And then he does, and Eames clutches at his jaw and says, "Jesus fuck." He looks down and there's blood on the carpet.

But Arthur doesn't look at the safe again before he walks out of the room, and Eames knows he won't try to break into it.

That afternoon he creates an Escher print he remembers seeing in Arthur's apartment once, the one where the hands are drawing each other. He places it overtop the safe. He'd rather not wonder about what he's chosen to forget every time he walks into the room, though he will remember the punch.

*

Arthur leaves. Arthur comes back.

He used to go like a thief in the night, sometimes leaving a note, sometimes not bothering. Now he waits until after dinner, so that Eames and Ariadne can see him off. Eames touches Arthur sometimes, as he's saying goodbye, and gets away with it. A hand on his shoulder, on his waist. He can't help it -- Limbo is boundless. If someone leaves intentionally, there's almost no way of finding them. Every time Arthur walks away could be the last time.

But he always comes back.

"Guess you just can't stay away, love," Eames says, when Arthur slips in the door one day at dawn.

"Guess not," says Arthur.

He shrugs out of his coat and lets Eames hang it up for him. He's impassive, but everything in his posture telegraphs anger. "Fuck this," he says. "Fuck this place. I used to be able to find anything I wanted."

"I know. I've tried to hide from you on more than one occasion, Arthur. It never works."

The look Arthur directs at him is vicious and fond at the same time. "We both knew you wanted to be found." Which is true, but it hadn't mattered, because Arthur had never come looking for him in person.

 

**[4]**

 

The leaves fall from the trees; snow falls from a white sky. Things settle in, a bit.

Arthur goes away less often, and stays for longer. Eames finds ways to keep him happy while he's there. He teaches Arthur to cook, and they spend evenings washing dishes together even though they don't have to. He lets Arthur beat him at chess. They spar. They play poker with Ariadne around the kitchen table at midnight.

Arthur discovers the library, which Eames has been working on for months.

All you have in Limbo is what you can create. If you remember the cracked spine of a novel but not the first hundred pages, that's all you have. To say that Eames' memory is good is an understatement -- during information-heavy extractions, the ability to recall is invaluable. The library has floor-to-ceiling shelves, containing Eames' approximations of everything from Austen to _Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_. (In which Sirius doesn't die. It's nice to misremember, sometimes.)

"I'm impressed," Arthur says, looking around.

"I'm well-read," Eames replies.

"Derrida, Baudrillard, Descartes ..." Arthur tilts his head, examining the titles. As he does, he trails a long finger down the spine of each, and Eames feels a shiver go up his own. "... Nietzsche, Borges, Barthes -- Jesus, Eames, do you spend _all_ of your spare time being a pretentious asshole? Isn't it exhausting?"

"Contrary to rumour," Eames says amusedly, "I got into the dreamsharing business through academic channels, not criminal ones. That part came later."

Arthur raises a disbelieving eyebrow, sliding a book off the shelf one-handed and flipping it open. _The Interpretation of Dreams_ , by Freud.

"Oh, don't try to read that." Eames splays his fingers over Arthur's on the book's spine, snapping it shut. He lets his palm rest there, on Arthur's wrist. "Didn't like it much, hardly wanted to remember it. It's probably missing sections."

"Ironic," Arthur says dryly, but Eames is paying more attention to the fact that Arthur hasn't moved his hand away.

*

They're on the Penrose staircase.

Eames, walking up to his room, doesn't hear Arthur come up behind him -- not until Arthur's pressed against the length of his back, arms wrapped around his waist and lips brushing the curve of his ear.

"Arthur --" Eames says, unsure.

"Guess what?"

"I have no idea," Eames says, and it's true. He can't think of _anything_ , beyond the fact that he can feel the rise and fall of Arthur's chest as he breathes.

Which is why he isn't expecting it when Arthur nudges his hips into Eames' ass and whispers:

"Paradox."

The stairs drop away in front of him, just as he loses his balance --

And then he's being tugged back, with Arthur's laughter warm against his neck. Eames turns and stumbles, inelegant, and their noses bump together.

"You little _shit_ ," says Eames -- but it comes out all wrong. Fond.

Arthur just keeps laughing. Eames has seen Arthur laugh for many reasons: derision, anger, schadenfreude. Never for mischief, though; never playfully. And his hand is still resting low on Eames' hip.

"I only caught you," Arthur says, "because I really don't know where you would've fallen to. And if we could get you out afterwards."

He's looking up at Eames through his eyelashes, lips parted slightly, and Eames knows the moment Arthur realises what he's doing. His breath catches. His shoulders stiffen.

He steps away, murmuring something about meeting Ariadne at the beach.

*

During dinner, Ariadne asks, "What are you going to do after you get out of here?"

"Take the most dangerous jobs I can find," Eames says. "Get piss drunk. And read actual books. Not necessarily in that order."

"Arthur?"

"Depends on what Dom's doing, I guess."

Ariadne makes a disbelieving noise. "Cobb? Seriously? Arthur, he's the reason we're all trapped down here. I don't care that he's the best, I am _never_ working with that jackass again. What do you see in him, anyway?"

Eames has always wanted to know that, himself. But he sees Arthur's jaw go hard, and remembers why he never bothered to ask.

"Like you said, he's the best," Arthur says tightly.

Oblivious, Ariadne lifts an eyebrow. "Is it heavy, carrying around all of that emotional baggage for him?"

Arthur slams his chair backward and leaves the room.

"That was ... unexpected," Ariadne says finally.

"Not really," Eames replies.

Arthur has a capacity for absolute, unswerving dedication. It's a puzzle, a novelty, one of the things about him that drew Eames in all those years ago. What he hadn't known then, though -- what he'd had to learn later -- is that for dedication to be absolute, it also has to be singular.

*

Arthur's at the kitchen table, working on his gun collection. He has been all night. Eames walks in, intending to have toast and maybe tea -- but instead he ends up sitting across from Arthur, asking:

"Are you in love with him?"

They've been in Limbo for over a year now. Eames knows the answer; sometimes he thinks about nothing but. But he needs to hear Arthur say it.

"That's none of your fucking business."

"Tell me anyway."

Arthur's hands move over sleek metal, efficient. Pieces of a Beretta Px4 Storm come together, as he imagines them into existence with careful detail.

"There are different ways to love someone," he says finally. "Not all of them involve wanting to fuck."

Eames says the first thing that comes to mind, so that he doesn't have to process what he's really thinking: "Maybe you should get fucked more often. I'd say you need it."

"I fuck," Arthur says. He laughs, but it's a caricature of one. "I get fucked. I like it. I just don't like everything that comes _with_ it."

"Ah."

"What."

"I get it. No commitment, no emotional baggage. You're not one for the morning after. Or for any sort of after at all." Eames' tone is inflectionless, and now he dips into mockery, saying, "There are many different ways to fuck someone, and not all of them involve love."

Arthur's hands go still, and he puts the pieces of the gun down on the table. "And sometimes you want both, but you can't always get what you want."

He says it quietly, staring off into space. Eames waits as long as he can, but Arthur doesn't say anything else.

*

Arthur needs a fight.

He doesn't know it, but Eames can see the coiled energy in his body, strung tight like a violin string. When Arthur snaps, Eames wants it to be worth it.

"Put on a suit," Eames tells him, one evening at sunset.

"Why?"

"We're going out."

Arthur gives him a curious look, but he complies.

They walk inland, past the forested area Ariadne built after Eames complained that flatlands weren't much of a view. In a quarter of an hour, they come to a glass-windowed apartment building standing in the middle of a field. Eames, mock-gracious, holds the elevator doors open for Arthur and they ride it up twenty floors to the top.

At the edge of the flat cement roof, there's a small table and two folding chairs. On the table is a bottle of red wine.

Arthur quirks an eyebrow and sits. Eames pours two wineglasses and offers Arthur one.

He waits out the expectant silence until Arthur's finished his wine. Then he stands up, smiles, and says, "I'm going to take the elevator down. You're going to take the stairs. There's a platoon's worth of projections between you and the lobby. U.S. Marines. Their objective is to keep you from getting there alive."

"Jesus Christ," Arthur says, voice low.

"I designed the building so that the stairs are on opposite ends of each floor. It should make things more interesting," Eames says, walking backwards towards the elevator. "Oh, and watch out for the minefield on floor nine."

"I'm unarmed," Arthur says. He grins, and it's predatory. "I'm unprepared. And I'm wearing _four thousand dollars' worth of Zegna_."

He's looking at Eames like he wants to fuck him.

"Have fun," Eames says, as the elevator doors start to shut. "I'll be waiting for you at home."

*

Eames is on the front steps, smoking and attempting to read a book, when Arthur walks out of the forest.

He's covered in blood; his hair is a mess; he looks more alive than Eames has seen him this entire time in Limbo. Along the way he's lost his suit jacket and his tie, and his shirt is missing buttons. He's _smiling_ \-- no man should be allowed to have dimples like those while carrying a Glock.

Arthur stops right in front of Eames, throwing aside the gun. He grabs Eames by the tie and drags him to his feet, pulling him into the house.

"They weren't shooting to kill, motherfucker," he growls. "Don't think I couldn't tell."

Eames laughs, stumbling up the stairs behind Arthur. "Was it good for you anyway, darling?"

Arthur locks the door of his room behind him and shoves Eames down onto his bed.

"Fuck yes," he says, dropping to his knees.

He fumbles Eames' shirt half-off, then gives up and goes for his pants. Before Eames has a chance to even touch him, he's got a hand wrapped around Eames' cock, jacking it off as he sucks on the head, dragging his tongue over it in long, flat strokes.

"Shit, what are you -- oh, god, _please_ \--"

Arthur slides his mouth all the way down. He takes it deep enough to choke, making noises of pleasure that vibrate against Eames' cock, when he has enough breath to. At some point Eames realises that Arthur's taken off his pants and is reaching down to slick himself with his own fingers. Eames goes dizzy with want.

Arthur climbs into his lap, kissing him. His mouth is messy with spit and precome, and he lets out a sweet little moan when Eames' cock nudges up against his ass.

"Fuck, _Eames_ \-- you have no idea how much I wanted this --"

Eames laughs, low in his throat, and rolls his hips. "I do, actually."

Arthur sinks down in one smooth movement, hot silky heat, and starts to fuck himself open on Eames' cock.

The desperation melts out of him, and he falls apart, slutty and unashamed. He goes incoherent, rocking his hips back and forth, and his hands are everywhere -- spread on Eames' chest, carding through his hair; touching himself, fisting his own cock like he can't get enough.

Eames loses track of how long they fuck for.

Every time one of them is close to coming, Arthur slows it right down, to an unhurried, rhythmic clench of his ass, kissing Eames carefully until he's trembling, starved for more. It's frustrating and drawn-out and gorgeous. Eames feels a fever building inside of him, skin over-sensitised from hovering close to orgasm for so long.

Arthur starts to rock his hips again, and Eames makes a pleading noise, but Arthur just smiles and shakes his head. He sucks a bruise into Eames' neck.

Ghosting his fingers down Eames' spine, Arthur settles them in the small of his back, stroking there. He must know what that touch does to Eames; he can't not. "God, I could fuck you forever," he says. His lips move along Eames' jawline and then he whispers, "Okay. Make me come."

Eames _shudders_ , can feel himself jerk inside of Arthur. He wraps a hand around Arthur's cock, pulls once, twice, and that's all it takes -- Arthur clenches around him, coming, eyes fluttering shut.

His body goes languid, his smile content, but he keeps working himself up and down on Eames' cock, achingly slow. Open-mouthed and sloppy, he keeps kissing Eames, until Eames surrenders and lets Arthur bring him closer and closer to the edge, in waves, and when he finally does come --

Jesus _fuck_.

By the time the world starts to make sense again, Eames is on his back, Arthur curled up beside him, head resting on his chest. They're both shaking a little. Eames breathes, and Arthur presses their mouths together, over and over.

 

**[5]**

 

A week passes. Maybe more. Eames loses track -- he and Arthur have been busy undressing each other in every single room of the house. Arthur's even fucked him on the Penrose staircase, right at the edge of the paradox.

Fortunately, Ariadne has an uncanny sense of when to go down to the beach for a couple of hours.

When they're not fucking, they're talking -- the only things two people want to do when they discover each other, really. For once it doesn't matter that there are no people here, no places. There's Arthur, and there's Eames, and that's more than enough.

*

There's an area stripped of natural vegetation, about twenty minutes inland. It's full of things that shouldn't be allowed to exist. Blivets and Penrose triangles. A statue in motion that seems to spin clockwise at times, and counterclockwise at other, even though the actual direction doesn't change. Arthur's spent hours re-creating optical illusions in three-dimensional space.

Eames sees it for the first time in spring.

"Arthur, you never told me you were a genius."

Arthur shrugs. "They're just logic exercises. Need to keep myself sharp."

Whereas Ariadne builds with natural detail, as if reality springs fully-formed and perfect from her skull, Arthur builds like he lives. He zeroes in on the things that interest him, and ignores everything else with a sort of arrogance. It makes him a shitty architect, but it's perfect for this kind of precise, conceptual work.

"My god -- is that _Escher_?"

"It is," Arthur says, pleased. "I wouldn't try to walk around in _House of Stairs_ , though. You'll throw up. I did."

Eames spends a while examining _Waterfall_ and _Belvedere_. Finally Arthur comes up behind him, tucking an arm around his waist and whispering into his ear: "I thought maybe we could work on something together." There's something a little shy in his voice.

"Arthur, _yes_ ," Eames says immediately, "I'd love to. How about the Difference Engine?" -- and turns around to catch Arthur's face lighting up with a smile.

God, he'll do anything for that smile.

*

"I built a treehouse," Arthur says. "Wanna see?"

Apparently, they have a backyard now. Arthur's treehouse takes up most of it. It looks like it's come straight out of a fantasy book. At the base is a door, knob protruding from the bark. Behind the door, a staircase leads up through the hollowed-out trunk, up to an architecturally impossible platform underneath a canopy of leaves.

"I wanted a treehouse the summer of third grade," Arthur says, "and fourth grade, and fifth grade. But my family lived in an apartment."

Eames sprawls out in a beanbag chair. "The little boy in me is enthralled, and he desperately wants to make love to you -- come here."

"You are appalling sometimes."

He takes Arthur's hand, tugging him down into his lap. Arthur comes, a bit reluctant, but then Eames catches his mouth in a lazy kiss and Arthur turns into it, shifting, making a little sigh.

Arthur wraps his arms around Eames' shoulders, pulling him close. His hip presses into Eames' cock through layers of fabric. Eames thinks he would probably content to do this forever, making out like teenagers until they're breathless.

Finally Eames laughs into Arthur's mouth and pulls away. "I haven't made out for this long since high school."

"Really?" Arthur arches an eyebrow. "Maybe you need to work on your foreplay."

"Arthur, merely _being in the same room with you_ is foreplay. You have the tenacity and the sex drive of a seventeen-year-old."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Please do," Eames says. He cards his fingers through Arthur's hair.

They lie like that for a while.

Finally Arthur says, "I get why Dom thinks it's addictive. It's so easy to create things here. You could build an entire life --" He stops, and hesitates like he's going to continue.

 _Together_ , is what Eames thinks he's trying to say. But he doesn't ask; he'd rather linger in the space of maybe.

*

Eames has convinced Arthur to start sleeping in. They stumble down to the kitchen at noon. Arthur's laughing; Eames keeps trying to snake an arm around his waist, and nearly gets a broken wrist for his troubles.

"Hey," Ariadne says, taking a sip of coffee. "Arthur. I went into your room today to borrow a tie. It's getting kind of dusty in there."

"Shut up," Arthur says, grinning.

"What did you need a tie for?" Eames asks. "Being kinky on your own, are we?"

"No, it's so that she can dress like a baby hipster," Arthur says. He sits down at the table and stretches, yawning. "Eames! Make me breakfast. Coffee. Waffles."

"Say please," Eames says, pouring coffee.

"No."

Eames is tempted to drop a kiss on Arthur's forehead when he hands him the mug. He doesn't want to push his luck, but Arthur glances up at him through his eyelashes, his smile making him look about twelve years old, and Eames realises that yeah, he could probably get away with it.

So he does.

He glances over; Ariadne's watching them, looking a little incredulous and a little fond. Eames winks.

"What?" Arthur says, sounding offended.

The next day, Arthur's entire bedroom just ceases to exist. All of his clothes end up in Eames' closet.

*

It's been almost a year.

Time isn't really the issue in Limbo: theoretically, they can safely spend years here, as long as they don't forget what it is.

There's something enticing in being suspended, free from the consequences of reality. Like the peace of a long train ride. It's enjoyable. Pure creation is enjoyable. But it has a psychological toll -- living here isn't _living_ , just postponement.

Arthur still hasn't found the thing he's looking for. More and more often, there are arguments. They've been here too long, and Arthur wants Eames and Ariadne to go.

But Eames outright refuses to leave without him, and a part of him doesn't want to leave at all.

 

**[6]**

 

Arthur is happy, except for when he isn't.

Eames knows that Arthur's always loved thinking with his gun, giving himself up to chaos and muscle memory. To instinct. A calm comes over him, when he's running or fighting or fucking. When his body's doing the work for him and he doesn't have to think at all -- a flawless machine.

Limbo is slow torture for him. It's the ultimate turning-inwards, away from the stimulus of the outside world. There's no risk, no danger. Eames can see that the fixity of the place is wearing him down.

Going out to search makes Arthur obviously miserable now, even though he has to do it. Every time he returns he drags Eames to bed, hungry, and keeps him there for hours.

But when he's not searching he's restless. He can't put any of what he knows to use; his edges get sharper because there's nothing to blunt them against. Sometimes he's angry over nothing, and won't speak to Eames or Ariadne for days.

He never apologises. Eames just wakes up and Arthur's in his arms again, like he expects to be forgiven.

*

Arthur's been gone for three weeks.

Eames is in the library, reading a Raymond Chandler novel. It's one of Arthur's, and Arthur's re-read it at least five times topside, judging from the amount of marginalia.

Ariadne's sitting cross-legged on the rug by the fireplace, flipping through books and quoting at random, like it's some sort of quiz.

" _The dream is a fulfillment of a wish._ "

"Freud."

" _The fulfillment of a wish results in unpleasure._ "

"Freud again," Eames says, flipping a page. "You into psychoanalysis? I wouldn't have expected that from you."

"There's a lot you don't know about me. You've been too busy pining after Arthur to figure it out."

Eames looks up in dismay. "Ariadne, I --"

"Hey, no, that's not what I meant." Ariadne laughs. "Don't apologise. It's sweet." She pulls another book off the top of the stack and lets it fall open at random.

"God, you remind me of Mal right now," Eames says. "We used to do this. During postgrad. Mal would lie on the carpet and quiz me and make lewd comments about the Oedipal complex. She's the reason I got into dreamsharing, you know -- it was impossible to say no her."

"When I asked Arthur about her, all he would tell me was that she was lovely."

"She really was."

"Her projection wasn't."

"That's because Dom can't get his shit together," Eames says. "Projections ... get twisted by the dreamwork, by desires and guilt and things that you know aren't even true. In the nineties, Mal and I tried to study them, but we found that you can't interpret them in any scientific way, really. The dream-distortion is too great." Eames laughs. "Ironic now, isn't it?"

Ariadne glances down at the book open in front of her. She reads from it to break the silence: " _I think of what I am where I do not think to think._ "

*

Arthur's been gone for four weeks.

Lately, he's unhappy more often than not. Failure and restlessness keep him on edge. Whenever Eames brings it up, Arthur tells him to leave, if he's so sick of waiting -- that Eames doesn't owe him anything, that he doesn't owe Eames anything, that he'd rather be here by himself.

"I know what you're thinking about," says Ariadne. "Stop it."

Eames doesn't stop. He says, "He can't keep doing this. _I_ can't keep doing this."

"He's always said you have no obligation to stay."

"As if I'd leave him," Eames snaps.

"I know."

*

The next morning, Eames wakes up to find Arthur wrapped around him in bed, reclaiming his space like he'd never left.

It's Ariadne who's gone.

*

Eames doesn't realise what's happened until breakfast, when he's halfway through the crossword. "Arthur," he says calmly, putting his pen down on top of the newspaper. "Where's your totem?"

Arthur looks up from the paper, coffee cup halfway to his mouth. "My what?"

It's like a kick to the chest.

"Nothing, love. I'll be right back," Eames says, and goes to their bedroom.

Arthur brought the newspaper in this morning.

Eames had tried making them, in his first couple of weeks living here with Ariadne, just to have something to read at breakfast. But they'd come up blank, or full of articles he'd read over the years, a weird scrapbook of events that didn't belong together.

On the dresser is a small box; he opens it.

His poker chip is there. Arthur's die isn't.

In its place is a note in Ariadne's spiky, left-leaning handwriting:

_I'll take over the searching. Stay with him, I won't lose myself. I don't know how long it'll take, Eames. Let him forget until I come back. Please. Let him be happy._

 

**[7]**

 

Arthur slips into forgetting slowly, but not slowly enough.

Everything makes sense, _in media res_. Things aren't strange until you stop to think about them, and in Limbo, you never do. As Arthur's mind remembers how things should be, it starts to change the space around them.

He doesn't notice, but Eames does -- when he steps outside one morning to find a street running past their house. When the morning after that, there's a mailbox on the fencepost and another house down the road. When he takes the car that appears in the driveway out for a spin, and discovers that he and Arthur live on an acreage on the outskirts of an oceanside city. People start to populate it: a mailman, neighbours, pedestrians, until Limbo's empty spaces are filled with Arthur's projections.

Arthur won't go to the beach anymore. It's like there's something there he doesn't want to think about.

A calendar appears on the kitchen wall.

His steps are still silent, his balance perfect -- but inside the house Arthur walks around barefoot. He wears t-shirts, and jeans that have been worn into softness.

And he smiles. All the time.

Eames continues to bring Arthur coffee every morning to go with his newspaper, pretending that everything is lovely. That when Arthur looks at him now, like there's no one else in the world, he doesn't feel his chest clench for an entirely different reason.

*

They're invited to a barbecue.

"I hate barbecues."

"I don't care. You're coming with me. Try not to be an asshole," Arthur says, and kisses him on the cheek.

Eames goes. The experience is vaguely surreal. He makes small talk with the neighbours, feeling the whole time like he's engaging them in some sort of Turing test.

In dreams, projections are never more than two-dimensional. They walk and talk like dreamers; they'll laugh at your jokes, let you buy them a drink and take them home. But it's just surface play, so slick you can mistake it for depth. If you know you're dreaming, it's easy to see the cracks. Projections lack memory, any conception of selfhood. They only respond.

These projections, though -- they could fool even Eames. He puts a couple of slightly-burnt hamburgers on his plate and mingles with the crowd, awed at the way they interact with stubborn human innocence.

"Does John realise that his wife is sleeping with Gareth?" Eames says curiously as they walk home, carrying foil-wrapped leftovers.

"Shit, really?" Arthur shakes his head. "I don't understand why people do that."

And then, like it's the most natural thing in the world, he takes Eames' hand and laces their fingers together.

"What?" Arthur says after a while. "Why are you staring at me like that?"

"Nothing," Eames says, smiling.

*

Sometimes Eames wants to forget, even though he knows he can't.

A sick, guilty part of him enjoys it when Arthur yells at him to take out the garbage, or do a grocery run, or especially when he comes home after a long job. Arthur's subconscious has decided it's time for him to be working again, and his mind seamlessly creates the places he travels to, the people he's expecting.

Out of curiosity, Eames visits Paris when Arthur's not there. It's silent, emptied of projections. Arthur's apartment is fully realised, as is the route to his favourite bagel shop (complete with the crooked sign on the street-corner). So are his favourite restaurants and museums and parks. But past the limits of where Arthur goes, the places fade out. An aerial view would probably show a patchwork city, riddled with huge gaps and empty spaces. The whole thing has a post-apocalyptic chill, and it makes Eames feel incredibly lonely.

Today, Arthur's just come home from a two-week extraction in Germany. He's exhausted; he's happy. After dinner, they curl up together on the sofa. Eames notices a little spatter of blood on Arthur's collar.

"Difficult job, love?"

"The best kind," Arthur says, half-dozing with his head in Eames' lap.

He's letting his hair get long, long enough that Eames can run his fingers through it, rubbing Arthur's scalp in soothing circles. Here, at home, Arthur relaxes into himself. His trademark intensity is still there, but it's not focused on anything.

"What're you doing," Arthur murmurs.

"Watching you."

"That's nice." Arthur's eyes stay closed, but he demands, "Kiss me."

Eames laughs, and does.

Tonight Arthur will fall asleep on the couch, and Eames will have to carry him to the bedroom. He'll stir, of course, when Eames starts undressing him; his mouth and hands will fumble with sleepy want. And Eames will give in, like he always does. He'll turn him over and fuck him until Arthur comes apart. Afterwards, Arthur will fall asleep with a smile on his lips, and if he wakes in the night he'll reach for Eames without hesitation.

It isn't right.

He's wanted Arthur for years, but not like this -- domesticated, amnesic, his sharp edges eroded by Limbo, like a smooth stone on a beach.

*

Arthur's projection of Dom invites them over for dinner on a Saturday.

Arthur drives along the road, signals left, and turns. They park in front of Dom's apartment, the one he'd been renting when he met Eames (and through Eames, Mal). Arthur had lived there with Dom, until the engagement.

He takes a key from his pocket and lets them in.

"My right-hand man!" Dom calls from somewhere in the house. "Come here, I need you -- I think I burnt the sauce but I can't tell --"

Eames follows Arthur into the kitchen. Sketches are spread out over the tile floor; Eames steps on a pencil and hears it snap. Dom never did how to clean up after himself. Arthur picks his way through the mess easily, throwing his jacket on a chair. He rolls up his sleeves, manhandles Dom out of the way, and peers into the pan.

"Too bad neither of us know how to cook."

Arthur and Dom start arguing over what kind of take out to get. It's an old, familiar argument, judging from their laughter -- not really an argument at all. They're easy with each other, relaxed, sometimes not bothering to complete their thoughts out loud. Eames leans against the counter, watching.

Dom's looking at Arthur like he's the brightest thing in the room.

Maybe Dom used to look at him like that all the time, before he met Mal. Maybe even after. Maybe he was the very first person to do it, and Arthur never forgot.

But Arthur's projection is out of date. Eames hasn't seen that expression on Dom's face for years.

 

**[8]**

 

Ariadne's gone for five weeks. At the end of the fifth week, Eames remembers that there's something he once chose to forget.

And suddenly, he needs to remember.

In the living room, he lifts the Escher print from the wall. The safe is still there, right behind it. Eames has no idea what the code might be, but he's spent years performing extraction, and he breaks it in under ten minutes.

There's a single object inside the safe.

A tiny metal spinning-top.

Dom's totem.

Of course.

It's Dom they've been searching for. Dom's the thing keeping Arthur here, the thing he won't let go of. He always is.

The memory, locked away, comes back to him: the Fischer job, the dangers of sedation. On the first level, Dom had been taken out by a stray bullet, as they dragged Fischer into the warehouse. Arthur had materialised a gun, going down into Limbo after him, without even thinking about it, and Eames had done the same.

*

" _I am where I do not think to think_ ," says a voice behind him.

Eames turns to find Ariadne reaching over his shoulder, into the safe. She steps back and holds up the totem, examining it.

"Please tell me what the fuck is going on," says Eames. "I didn't put it here, but Arthur told me neither of you did."

"I lied to him," says Ariadne.

Eames pauses, then says: "That day on the beach. When you found something in the sand, and wouldn't show it to me. It was this."

"Yeah. He threw it away -- he's forgotten on purpose. I found him, you know. He's living on an island off the coast, a little to the north. With Mal. Well, with a projection of Mal. They're happy."

"Ariadne," Eames says flatly, "we've been here for over a year, and now you're telling me you _hid_ the thing that could have led us to Dom?"

"Remember what Freud said? _The dream is the fulfillment of a wish_?" Ariadne slips the totems into her pocket and crosses her arms. "He also said, _the fulfillment of a wish results in unpleasure_. People don't let themselves get what they want, Eames. Even if it's right there for them to take. They're cowards, they find ways to defer it."

"You're not explaining yourself very well."

"You wanted Arthur," Ariadne continues. "But you've never let yourself claim him. You just keep letting him walk away, out of some misguided sense of _honour_. And he wouldn't let himself have you, because -- well, we both know why. Dom." Ariadne smiles, a half-smile that Eames doesn't exactly like. "So I had to make things easy for you two. Keep you here together, give Arthur some time to let go."

There's a silence, after which she says dryly: "There's this emptiness I feel when you're not around, Eames. It's like I'm not here at all."

She'd said she couldn't remember how she'd died, up in the first level.

Because she hadn't.

Ariadne smiles at him, and even now, there's nothing pernicious about her, nothing seductive, not like Dom's projection of Mal. This Ariadne has the same cheerful curiosity as the real one, the expression that's wide-eyed and ironic at the same time. It makes sense. Her purpose wasn't to guilt or to torment: it was to disarm.

"You fucking manipulative _shit_ ," Eames says finally.

"Hey, be nice. Projections only exist as an extension of the dreamer."

"Right, so what does that make you? Repression with a vendetta? My fucking _id_?"

Ariadne raises her eyebrows. She sounds almost like she's chastising Eames when she says, "You know it's not that simple."

*

Ariadne lets Eames think in silence. It doesn't take him very long to shuffle the pieces into order.

Eames remembers the day he first found her, on the clifftop. How lonely he'd been. How much he'd wanted Arthur. Ariadne had kept him company while he's waited, said things to Arthur that he hadn't had the courage to, made choices he hadn't wanted to touch.

"Why would I project you?"

"Why not?" Ariadne replies. "Arthur likes me, trusts me. So do you. You both seem to think I'm naive. I'm not a threat. I'm not a rival."

 _Not like Dom_ , she doesn't say.

He and Dom have known each other for years. For some of those, they were friends. But in the past decade, Dom's gotten Eames arrested six times, hospitalised twice, and tortured once. (On rainy days, Eames' left shoulder still aches.) He's also taken two of the things that Eames actually bothered to care about, and now one of them is gone.

Dom loved Mal with a frightening intensity; he still does.

And Arthur, he never loved at all. Eames can't forgive him for that.

"If you lost consciousness right now," Ariadne says, "you'd just accept what was around you when you woke up." It's not threatening, just contemplative -- the way she sounds when she's piecing together a building floorplan. "So if I wasn't there, you'd forget all about me. And if none of the totems were here, you wouldn't have to worry about reality, either."

"Stop it."

With a gesture, Ariadne makes the wall-safe disappear. "I could go give the kick to Dom, and then it would just be you and Arthur here. Doesn't a part of you want that?" She smiles brightly. "I'm a part of you. I want that."

"I don't. So shut the fuck up, please."

Ariadne ignores him. "I'd come back, of course. How much time would you want with him? A year? Two? _Hey_ , goddamn it -- don't be like that -- Eames -- _put the gun down, Eames_."

She sounds surprised, though not very, as Eames flicks the safety off.

Eames says calmly, "I don't want to do this."

"Are you sure?" Ariadne says. She laughs, and it's more resigned than anything else. "Humans are just this mess of conflicting drives and instincts. You know that. It's why you love them. You are what you do, Eames. So who's going to win out? The ego or the id?"

"You know it's not that simple," Eames says, parroting her own words back to her. To himself, in a way. Jesus.

Ariadne closes her eyes.

"Look," she says finally, "whatever. I'm not going to sit here and debate personhood with myself. If that's what you want, do it. Just fucking do it. It'll make your superego feel better."

There's a long pause.

" _Eames_ \--"

He does it.

Afterwards, he swallows. Closes his eyes and just stands there for a while. He takes the totem from her pocket, then he picks the body up gently, carries it down to the beach, and lays it on the shore of his unconscious.

The tide will take it away.

*

Arthur is in the living room when Eames returns. He's sitting on the sofa, head in his hands. He glances up, eyes wide, as Eames kneels in front of him and says, "I need to tell you something."

And he does. He tells him every single fucking thing, in a voice so quiet it sometimes drops into a whisper. He looks straight into Arthur's eyes. He doesn't ask for forgiveness, because he's not sure if he deserves it.

Arthur's silent the whole time -- but it's strange; as Eames speaks the tension drains out of his body, not the other way around.

"Thank god," Arthur says when Eames is done, and kisses him. There's no hunger in it, just a sweet breath of relief.

"Arthur?" he asks, tentative.

Arthur leans back, pulling into himself until they're not touching anymore. Eames lets him do it, even though his body screams no.

"You _knew_ ," Eames realises.

"Only since this afternoon. I came home from Dom's place early" -- Arthur's mouth twists, as he considers what his Dom is, and isn't -- "and I heard you and ... her, talking. I stopped on the stairs. I listened."

"You didn't say anything."

Arthur looks away. His voice goes hard when he says, "I had to know whether you would tell me the truth. If you hadn't --"

He stops, and then adds, softer: "But you did."

As if he's going to touch Eames, he shifts forward. But he stops halfway, saying, "Give me some time."

Eames wants to reach for him, to cup his jaw and kiss him, gentle and deep. But something about Arthur is still hesitant. It wouldn't be right, if he did it now, and Arthur confirms that thought by getting up. Eames steps back to let him have space. "Wait," Eames says. He holds out Dom's totem for Arthur to take.

Arthur's almost out the door when he turns around. The words come out rough, like he doesn't want to say them out loud: "I think I'm in love with you." And then he goes.

*

In Limbo, it's easy to create.

It's easy to _be_ \-- the self you've always wanted, without the weight of reality.

It's easy to forget.

In the shadow of every thing lurks its opposite, outside of dreams. Desire and fear, happiness and sadness, virtue and vice. People exist as as wholes, contradictions hanging in balance. Here, though, you can suspend gravity. You can tilt the scales, creating perfection. A rebirth into an endless death.

If asked, Eames would have said no. No, don't try to shove the parts of me I don't want under the rug -- keep the resentment and the guile where I can see them, where they can't do any harm. He's not even sure if they're his sins, but he can't live with the weight of them.

He wants to atone for what he's done. If he can. If it's him who did it, in the end.

Eames waits.

 

**[9]**

 

For once, he doesn't have to wait long.

Arthur comes back to him the next day. He presses himself into Eames' arms the moment the door opens, kissing him with hunger. It takes him a while to notice that Eames is passive, not kissing back. "What's wrong?" he asks, bewildered.

Eames pulls away, going to close the door. "Where's Dom?"

"Gone," Arthur says. "I found him. Gave him the kick, told him we'd follow. I wanted us to have another day together." When Eames stays silent, he adds, "I'm not angry, Eames."

"What I did --" He manipulates people for a living; he does it almost without thinking. But it's something he's never wanted to do to Arthur.

"But you didn't," Arthur says. He frowns. "Dom and I talked about this. His projection of Mal got me alone, once. She tied me to a chair. She -- burned me, and electrocuted me. She cut my skin off, in chunks. I kept passing out."

"Jesus."

"Yeah." Arthur laughs, hollow. "He almost wouldn't work with me again, after that one. My point is -- Dom's never going to forgive himself for those things. But he didn't do them. It's not like he wanted them to happen." 

"A part of me might have," Eames says.

There's something honest in Arthur's voice when he says, "It doesn't matter, though. You made your choices. You waited, you told me the truth. Even back when Dom and I were on the run -- god, I owe you so many fucking favours that if you sold my soul the Supreme Court wouldn't complain. And you never called them in, you never made me do _anything_."

Eames lets Arthur kiss him.

Arthur runs his tongue along the seam of Eames' lips, and when they part, the kiss turns into something gentle, breathless. It feels like absolution.

"I want to show you something," Arthur says, leading Eames upstairs.

On the floor of the bedroom closet is a chest. Inside of it are maps of Limbo, detailed and methodical, labelled in Arthur's neat writing. He must have drawn them as he searched.

The northern coastline, where Dom had been living all along, is _terra incognita_. Blank on the map. Unexplored.

"I never went there," Arthur says. "It was like my mind didn't want to. When I told myself I had to go north, it would get too cold, or I'd be too tired. Or something. And I'd find a reason to come back. Every time."

*

They spend their last day quietly, taking comfort in routines: making dinner together, washing the dishes. Arthur looks for excuses to touch him, and Eames pretends not to notice. Every touch has an urgency to it, a feeling of finality.

At night, they undress each other slowly, like they're trying to map, to memorise.

Arthur press him into the bed and explores every inch of his skin. He kisses Eames for ages, precise and devastating, their skin touching everywhere, their cocks nudging together slowly.

The slow burn builds inside them both, and it's unbearable.

He could turn it desperate, he knows -- get Arthur on his back, pin his wrists, kiss him slick and deep until he's begging for a cock in his mouth, in his ass, anything. Instead, Eames puts a hand in the small of Arthur's back and lets Arthur direct him.

Eames can feel his skin heating up until he's flushed and trembling, writhing in the sheets as Arthur sucks bruises into his neck, bites down on his collarbone. Arthur doesn't let up, his hips keeping Eames pinned, and it's so good. Eames can't get enough of Arthur's mouth, of his skin; he wants so badly to be fucked, to have Arthur inside of him.

"Arthur, _please_." His voice comes out hoarse, wrecked. "I want --"

But it's not about what he wants, tonight. It's about what Arthur wants, so Eames stays pliant and obedient and lets Arthur make demands of his body.

He works his way down Eames' chest, a slow drag of tongue and teeth across his tattoos, and lower. He takes Eames' cock into the wet heat of his mouth, his tongue licking up and down the underside; he lets Eames fuck into him like that, as the minutes stretch out and time loses meaning.

Eames feels the orgasm curling in the base of his spine, and manages, "You need to stop."

When Arthur comes up to kiss him, it's filthy: his mouth is warm, his lips slick and reddened. He gets a hand underneath Eames' hip and flips him over, silent and exact, and Eames lies there obediently, shivering into the sheets and waiting for the press of fingers.

But then Arthur kisses in between his shoulderblades; he trails his tongue down Eames' spine. Eames moans, his cock pressing swollen and heavy against the softness of the blankets as Arthur's tongue reaches the small of his back, slipping lower, licking at his hole until he can't take it anymore.

He gets on his hands and knees, and Arthur puts a hand on his hip to hold him there.

Finally, the blunt tip of his cock nudges up against Eames, into him; one sharp thrust and he's inside, his breath coming fast and shallow.

Arthur fucks him, hard, and Eames can feel Arthur's hands pressing the bruises into his hips like he's taking a punishment out of Eames' skin. He moans softly and lets him, lets Arthur fuck him deep and hard and unforgiving until Eames can't even think anymore, just move, just feel.

It doesn't take long -- he's been on the edge ever since Arthur put his mouth on him. When he comes, Arthur doesn't let up. He fucks Eames through his orgasm, and past it, his lips brushing Eames' shoulder, and Eames can't do anything about it but let Arthur fuck him until he comes.

After, the desperation melts out of them, leaving them tangled and trembling. They sleep, never not touching.

*

In the morning, when they walk away from the house, they leave it intact.

On the clifftop, Eames makes a picnic basket and opens it up: sandwiches cut into quarters, a bottle of ice wine, and lemon sorbet that won't melt. Then he spends an hour dreaming up cloud-shapes -- ridiculous, exquisite, lewd -- to make Arthur laugh.

Lying side-by-side in the grass, they lapse into silence. The sky goes clear blue again. It's sunny, because they want it to be.

"After the inception takes," Arthur says, "there's a position for Dom at the university. He's going to settle down. No more jobs. He wants me to go with him."

"Will you?"

Arthur tugs Eames closer, pressing his nose into the juncture between Eames' neck and his jaw. It tickles. "I was going to. But now I won't."

Eames breathes.

"What we have here," Arthur says. "I don't know if we can have it, up there. I'm ... happy." He sounds confused about that fact. "But our lives, dreamsharing, there's so much that's missing. I'm not, I can't just -- settle, yet. Maybe ever. I don't know what I want. What _you_ want --"

He stops, making a small, frustrated noise.

"Ssh," Eames says. He puts a hand overtop Arthur's mouth.

"Eames," Arthur protests, muffled.

"I want _you_ , if you'll have me."

Arthur's frown disappears; then it comes back again. "It's not that easy."

"It can be."

*

At the edge of the cliff, the military precision steals back into Arthur's body like a loose thread pulled tight. He stands calm, looking down at his death with a smile. The waters below are broken up by sharp rocks; a riptide makes sure they'll get there.

Arthur turns his head and takes a moment to look at Eames, wonderingly. "You waited a long time for me," he says. "Longer than I deserved."

"Make it worth my while, darling."

"I will."

He slips their hands together.

They step off the edge.

 

**[10]**

 

Limbo fades upon waking.

You don't remember all of it, just like you don't remember all of a dream. If you close your eyes and try to hold on, sifting through the memories before they fade, more of it stays. But in time, the details blur away. Reality replaces them.

It's the feeling that lasts -- the touch-memories, the emotions.

The plane touches down at LAX. Inside of it are six people who have just done the impossible. At the airport, they try not to smile at each other too much, and they go their separate ways.

In the time it takes Eames to blink, Arthur disappears.

Eames goes to London, and settles into his flat. He has Arthur's number, but he won't call it. There's no more to say. He's done all that he can. He has for years.

Eames waits.

*

Nineteen days after the Fischer job ends, Arthur knocks on his door.

He's wearing jeans and a t-shirt and a smile. There's more than one suitcase on the ground behind him.

Tentative, Eames puts a hand on Arthur's waist and asks, "Do you remember?"

Arthur steps in so close that Eames can smell a hint of coffee; then he reaches out, ghosting his fingers along Eames' jaw. It's gentle and slow, like he can afford to take his time now.

"Yes."

 

*

 

 _There is no discipline of forgetting._  
\-- Umberto Eco

**Author's Note:**

> So, uh, I'm about seven years late in uploading all of my fic to the AO3. Better late than never? I miss fandom — come say hi @aoftheis on [twitter](http://twitter.com/aoftheis/) or [tumblr](http://aoftheis.tumblr.com).


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